A NEW Wii WORKOUT FOR YOUR BODY AND MIND

After the phenomenal success of the original Wii Fit and it’s must have status for most owners of the Wii last Xmas, Nintendo again helps us stay in shape with Wii Fit Plus hitting the shops across Europe on 30th October.

The new Wii Fit adds new exercise features for both mind and body and is aimed squarely at making your at-home training regime even easier. For the first time, you can customise your own yoga routines and strength-training exercises to create a continuous exercise plan to suit your individual fitness goals. You can also isolate specific areas of the body for toning or conditioning purposes or simply to relieve fatigue or improve posture. The ‘My Routine’ programme saves your routines and allows you to combine up to 30 exercises in total. If you’re not feeling creative Wii Fit Plus can create a randomised routine for you using the Yoga and Muscle exercises. Lifestyle routine gives you exercise combinations to help train muscles and boost flexibility or even warm your hands and feet to ease tension. In Health routines you can work your tummy and fat burn, Youth routines help you train body and mind and work your lower body.

In addition to the weight and BMI tracking of Wii Fit, a brand new calorimeter makes your daily progress easier to track. It estimates the amount of oxygen used by the body during physical activity and so estimates you’re calories burned on each activity during gameplay. Wii Fit Plus, for example, can estimate that a person with a 70kg body weight carrying out the game’s Hula Hoop exercise for half an hour is the equivalent to 140kcal.

In addition to all the original Wii Fit features, Wii Fit Plus now brings you 50% more content, including 15 new balance games and six new strength training and yoga activities meaning you can chill, relax and ease away the stresses of daily life from those aching muscles.

With a range of fun new mini games and a new multi-player option, there are activities for all the family to share – up to eight players can compete against one another in a variety of balance and training games. You can choose to run an obstacle course set across a series of floating platforms, throw snowballs at your mates or watch your friends flap their arms to land a hilarious chicken character as close to a series of targets as possible.

Wii Fit Plus comes packaged with the Wii Balance Board with its sensors measuring weight and detecting shifts in balance, both from side to side and front to back. A standalone version of the game will also be available if you already have the Wii balance board. Standing on the board during activities allows you to follow along to movements and control the on-screen action. Each sensor has the ability to detect even minor motion, so movements like shifting the position of your hand can be detected. And with the addition of activities like Skateboarding and Rhythm Kung Fu, players can use the Wii Balance Board accessory in a variety of new and fun ways.

The NHS is said to be giving the Nintendo Wii Fit Plus the NHS’s Change4Life logo making the Wii the first gaming device to ever be recommended by the health department. While the government and various health agencies have often attacked video games as being a major factor in the health and obesity problems they are trying to tackle, it seems that the Wii Fit Plus has elicited a change in opinion. They believe it will encourage a healthier lifestyle among Britain’s armchair critics – video gamers. So weather you’re already a Wii Fit addict and fancy a new set of exercise routines to keep things fresh, or a new convert and feel now is the time to get yourself fit, Wii Fit Plus offers something for everyone.